Go BottomBar tires versus Turf tires
 | gilles daigle
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2001-08-08 30793
I am looking to purchase a BX2200 and my question is: has anyone used bar tires versus the turf tires. My intention for the compact is for snowblowing and removing a pontoon boat in/out of the water. I do not have that much lawn to do but will get the 60inch deck. Should I expect lawn damage if I go with the bar tires? thanks gilles
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| Hillbilly
Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 0 hills
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2001-08-09 30803
You will not have any traction with the turf tires for pulling or pushing,the turf tires are fair weather tires,I have even heard of people spinning on damp grass in four wheel drive with turf tires,if you are needing traction the bar tires are the way to go. ....
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| Rich Luhr
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2001-08-09 30808
What Hillbilly says is correct, but to specifically answer your question, YES, the bar tires will shred your lawn. Life's a compromise. Good luck ....
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley 
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2001-08-09 30809
Yes, I do spin my turfs on grass in 4wd when ripping sod with a box scraper scarifiers. I still get the job done by taking it in several passes--takes longer though. The turfs also work OK for snow blowing and some loader work on frozen gravel. Actually nothing has a lot of traction on ice or snow pack except chains. Turfs may work about as well as ags on ice. I'm able to manage the traction problems I have with the turfs, but it does take some time and some fiddling. When I think about, I'd love to have ags for a lot of the work I do. But then, I still have to drive on lawns sometimes. Can't really drive ag tires on lawns, and having to stay off lawns probably would be more aggravating than fiddling with traction problems. ....
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| Roger L.
Join Date: Jun 1999 Posts: 0
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2001-08-09 30812
Yes, the reduced traction of the turf tires will allow them to spin the tires in 4wd on wet grass. Bar and ag tires are more difficult to spin, but not much. If tire surface area was what mattered, the bars and ags should have less traction, but their profile picks up a little more traction than the turfs in most grasses. The advantage of ags is that they quickly spin down to bare dirt where they can get a grip. Then they have a lot more traction than the turf tires.....but you might not like what a spinning ag tire does to your lawn.
On a really hard surface the turfs seem to have more traction than the ags. ....
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 | Art White
Join Date: Jan 2000 Posts: 6898 Waterville New York
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2001-08-10 30841
The turf tires on pavement or on a hard surface will out pull a ag tire. On ground depending on the tightness the ag tire will drop in the depth of the bar to aid the traction. The ag tires o a BX are a very low profile about one inch tall unlike the ag tires on larger tractors where the lugs might be two to three inches high. ....
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| Hillbilly
Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 0 hills
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2001-08-10 30861
Art,
What you are saying is a turf tire has better traction than an ag tire on a hard surface,be it hard packed clay or asphalt? A flat surface or an incline either one? I have a hard time believing that to be true under all circumstances. ....
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| Art White
Join Date: Jan 2000 Posts: 6898 Waterville New York
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2001-08-11 30863
Hillbilly, have you ever seen a tractor pull? they remove nearly all the tire bars on the tire as ag tire's bars will bend over on a hard pull. On a hard surface think of racing tires, or slicks, its surface contact that counts. Tires are always a trade off. I've spun turf tires on wet grass too, but I've also seen turfs out pull ag tires. ....
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| Hillbilly
Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 0 hills
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2001-08-11 30866
The tractor pulls I usally watch are the regular farm tractors coming in off the fields as is ,but I see what you are saying about the surface contact,but of course the raising slicks they spin them to get them hot and make them sticky.Interesting point Art. Thanks ....
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| mlmartin
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2001-08-11 30872
Putting aside the heating of a tire surface to increase tack (this is not a factor in any tractor activity I know of:-) one of the keys to traction on a hard dry surface is the total length of tread edges touching the surface. Mor edges means more traction. In this measure, ags lose out to turfs big time.
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The extreme variation of conditions that a tractor has to deal with makes the trade offs more apparent than they are in automotive tires.
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Matthew ....
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 | harvey
Join Date: Sep 2000 Posts: 1550 Moravia, NY 
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2001-08-12 30892
This is a good discussion. So far, I think, most have it right in regards to application of tires. However My $.02 worth is: soil, lawn or pavement contact. On farm soil that a ag tire can bite into the square inches of the lugs in contact with the soil is increased. If you put that same tire on pavement you loose 2/3 of the contact. Lets not even bring up sand. The special cut of the HI-Preformance pulling tractors requires contact with the soil and a cleaning bar to remove loose soil, thus the low cut that Art mentioned and the reason. The low cut bars on the little bx tractors is not gonna hurt any lawn I would venture on. I suspect a greens keeper would not use them on a putting green. If you have a lawn like that, QUIT READING NOW, cause I'm sure to offend you. On most lawns/YARDS that I see compacts on any tire is suitable. If you use ag tires you may have to be careful in the spring or after rains. But if your lawn/yard is that delicate your turfs are gonna leave a slight rut also. On some yards you may have to use ags or chains for traction because of hills/slopes or soft spots. You might have to consider a smaller (lighter) tractor or psi contact with the soil and get floatation tires. I have had my turfs spin on full throttle direction, fwd/rev, changes mowing. Very rarely do I make a Fwd/rev change usually turn a full circle at end of row. I have spun ag tires in the same application and no difference in damage. I have been in the woods also with both types of tires. On damp spot soil ags work better than turfs. But I usually use chains in the woods to protect the tires, any time a tire spins or slips on wet/damp ground you have little/big cuts in the tires, and I do not see not much traction difference between ags and turfs with chains. My opinion is: for the variety of chores I do with my tractor turfs work the best, even in winter. Again I use chains often to protect tires and traction when I need it. Bottom line is: your application, your intended use and what will work best for you with or without chains. ....
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| Hillbilly
Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 0 hills
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2001-08-12 30895
Where I live the only place you see turf tires are on the lawn mowers and a few small compact tractors used for mowing lawns,no one I know of has any need for a turf tire in strictly a hard smooth ground surface,I have the R-4 tires and they are pretty much useless to me,matter of fact I have a new set of R-1 tires and rims on order as of now because the R-4 tires just don't do the job,I have driven up steep roads here that are freshly cut buy a dozer and low range carrying a brush hog and 2000 rpms full throttle on my JD 4400 is the best it will do,I know I couldn't have made the trip with turf tires. I guess in a tractor pull you are working under ideal conditions,where as out here it is less than ideal. ....
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2001-08-13 30920
Pretty soon I've got to make another 10-mile highway trip to our camp to do some work. I will appreciate the easy-riding turfs along the way there and back. Most of the work will be backhoe and 3ph forklift work, and any tire will work OK. I do have to grade a small area, but it's probably not worth the trouble to take the box scraper, and turfs work just fine for pushing around loose material with a bucket. I have to cross a lawn to do site preparation and to haul building materials. I'm just as happy I don't have to worry whether it's going to rain so I have to stay off the lawn. The rest of the time I wish I had ags, and several good cases for having them were made. However, I wouldn't under-estimate the potential of ags for tearing up a lawn. I also wouldn't under-estimate the traction of turfs. Sometimes the potential traction of turfs isn't fully utilized. Some people run tire pressures as if they were carrying max loads at all times. Higher pressures than are required by loads raise the centres of turf tires. The ground contact area is reduced, which reduces the traction. During the winter I run 10 lbs. front and 12 lbs. rear to increase traction. I could go as low as 8 & 10 if I had a lighter blower and wasn't carrying buckets of highway slush around. I don't think ag tire traction is quite as sensitive to pressure. ....
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| Art White
Join Date: Jan 2000 Posts: 6898 Waterville New York
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2001-08-13 30928
Tom not true! At least for radial tires, they are very sensitive to air pressure and it is most often the culprit when people complain about power hop. The compacts normally are not pulling long enough distance or hard enough to develop this problem but you might have trouble disengaging the four wheel drive. It will reduce traction by either too hard or soft. ....
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| Jim Youtz
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2001-08-14 30942
I have R4 tires (industrial) and I consider them to be the best middle ground compromise. I mow my lawn without damage and traction is very good for other duties. ....
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2001-08-14 30945
Thanks Art. Always happy to learn something. Guess I speculated that ag tires would have a more rigid crowns than turfs, which would reduce the effect of pressure on the tread pattern. The conclusion seems to be that it's best to stick close to the load charts for all tire types. There was a news story a couple of days back about a guy who's driving a '49 JD across Canada to raise money for a charity. I noticed on the news pic that he was running ags. Wonder if he's wearing a kidney belt, but maybe the jolting isn’t that bad. ....
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| Art White
Join Date: Jan 2000 Posts: 6898 Waterville New York
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2001-08-14 30947
Tom several manufacturers are building tires for better life and ride on the roads. Many of our new big tractors are built with 25mph transmissions and with the right combinations speeds of 30mph can be met. Several of the european tractor lines have 40mph tractors. They use tractors as trucks which is why they have far more lighting and different lighting on there tractors. They also pioneered the jump seats that we have in our tractors today to safely carry a passanger with a seat belt in a cab. ....
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| rdunstan
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 10 myLocation
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2001-08-15 30969
We recently bought a JD4100 with R-4 tires specifically for mowing and other yard duties. In the early spring, it left some dents in the turf that a turf tire will not. On the other hand, the tractor I borrowed with turf tires slipped all over on the place. As for Ag tires, teh ones on my JD1070 they literally ripped the turf apart - but traction was no problem. :-) My other half is very happy with the R-4s, but I'd really rather have Ag tires for the rest of the work I do with "her" tractor in the orchard and tree farm. ....
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 | DRankin
Join Date: Jan 2000 Posts: 5116 Northern Nevada
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2001-08-15 30970
I will weigh in on at least one point. I agree with Harvey that the worst possible tire for use in sandy soil is a standard R-1 ag. They turn into highly effective rototillers/trenchers, especially when going up hill or making tight turns. Now a question for discussion: What is wrong with using a turf or all terrain truck tire and then using chains to increase traction where needed, such as wet lawns? It seems to me that the only thing an R-1 tire will do better than any other design would loading operations on a concrete floor covered with manure and straw. The chevrons on the treads would just keep shoving the material to each side of the tire until it "cleans" its way down to traction on the hard floor. Under almost any other application it would seem a turf/truck tire with chains would do just as good a job or better. ....
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2001-08-16 30988
I've always thought that chains over turfs when needed is an appealing thought, and that's what I intended to do--maybe still do. I guess the cost and the imagined difficulty of taking chains on and off slowed me down, and then I discovered I get by OK without chains. Of course, I'm not doing any plowing. The soil is very sandy here, so it doesn't take a lot of traction to cut with a box scraper. For spreading new gravel, I'm not sure how much better ags would be, but the turfs do burrow in if I'm not careful. There was a discussion about chains on turfs quite awhile back. I think one person said that's what they do. I seem to recall a comment that chains don't do that much better in mud. Regarding lawn damage: It doesn't take much to spin turfs right through the turf either. Yesterday, I took a patch out right down to the sand. I made two attempts of about a second each to get a 3hp forklift under two large poplar trunks--it went under the first but not the second trunk. I thought about engaging the 4wd, but I figured I'd just end up with two patches out of the lawn rather than one. I was just raising the trunks to block them for sectioning, and decided to solve my traction problem by doing one trunk at a time--probably safer too. Well, I guess I was being ambitious and playing tractor hero. After all, I had just finished some tree felling artistry (or accident). I took down two poplars that were standing 20' apart, and put the trunks on the ground side by side. Success, even accidental, breeds heroes I guess. ....
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| DRankin
Join Date: Jan 2000 Posts: 5116 Northern Nevada
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2001-08-16 31012
Tom, I lived in Alaska for the last two decades and just recently moved to Nevada. I have developed a lot of experience with 4wd in general, but not particularly with tractors other than the Sears lawn tractor I thought I could move snow with, but that is another story. I did, however, drive the nearest thing to a tractor there is in the automotive world, a 4wd Subaru. Those little horizontally opposed engines have a flat torque curve, low horsepower, and a two range four wheel drive. Many times I pushed through snowdrifts that flowed up unto the hood or started on icy hilly intersections where broncos and suburbans with big block V8’s were sitting crossways and spinning their tires. Why? Because in 4wd there was not enough horsepower developed to spin the wheels, even on ice. It would spin and stop in 2wd but the instant you shifted into 4wd it just crawled out of trouble. That is because it divided its 77 HP by four wheels. I have found the same to be true with my Deere 4100. When my rear tires (which by the way are 245/65-16 radial all terrain’s) start to spin on a sandy, steep hill, I simply engage the 4wd on the fly and it just crawls out of the hole it just made. I would bet that if you chained your rear turf tires and engaged your 4wd BEFORE you drove of your lawn that you would reduce the damage many times over. That is because the chains would give you just enough bite and the power would be spread between enough wheels that it would just go and not spin at all. Don’t, however, try this with your big block, heavy iron, American mudslinger, because it will dig a hole for itself and fall in it, and then require a Subaru to pull it out, but that too is another story. ....
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| mlmartin
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2001-08-16 31015
That reminds me of a 2wd vs 4wd story.
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Early one recent spring, my daughter backed the old Ford 2wd F250 with a load of hay across the slightly thawed pasture. No problem there, it's slightly downhill from the road to the shed and 3000 lbs of hay made for a _lot_ of traction. Now empty, the Ford couldn't get enough traction to move in a straight line:-) After playing in the mud for 10 minutes she decided to stop and ask for help. I gave the Ford a ten second try and headed for the garage.
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When I got back to the pasture in my wife's Audi 200 turbo quattro with a length of chain, my daughter remarked about having _two_ vehicles stuck in the mud:^) I hooked a chain between the two vehicles, locked the center differential of the Audi and pulled the Ford up to the street with the Audi's engine running just above an idle.
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A _real_ four wheel drive system, like Subaru's and Audi's will out perform almost all SUVs. If you can't lock the differentials, you don't have what it takes.
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Matthew ....
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2001-08-17 31027
Yes, I know what you guys are saying. When tires start slipping, all is lost--also true in drag racing. My point was more that is easy to spin turfs on grass, and that slipping turfs will tear up a lawn same as any tire. I decided that it was really better to have only one trunk at at time on the forklift anyway rather than force the traction issue. Two trunks, and I'd have to worry about hitting the second trunk with the nose of the chainsaw and seeing whether the inertia brake works or not--I'm not even certain my Husky 257 has an inertia brake.
As you point out, a higher traction tire might not have slipped in the first place. But then, higher traction tires make for an interestingly textured lawn when it's wet. Everything has its pluses and minuses I guess. Turfs have their problems but they also let me do some things easily that are difficult with ags. If I had ags, I'd have a different set of problems, and I'd probably learn to organize myself so I wouldn't have to drive on turf when it's wet. Learning how to get the work done with what is available, rather than trying to overpower things is an important lesson in tractoring.
....
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